The first step towards securing the ideal candidate is how you portray a job.
And so, embracing transparency when it comes to posting salaries is an integral part of long-term teacher recruitment and retention.
Salary transparency can create more trust and fairness in the job process!
At the end of the day, you want to recruit, train, and retain the best candidate for this position.
Build your best staff of teachers with some adjustments to your online posting, starting with pay transparency.
Here are the key takeaways:
- Attracting the right candidate
- Transparency with existing employee salaries
- Save time and stress
- Create an equitable environment
- The controversy
1. Attracting the right candidate
The most qualified and experienced candidates will be selective regarding job applications. After all, time is valuable, and it’s essential to be working in a place where you feel valued.
Listing the salary on the online job posting will make what is available and possible crystal clear.
Research shows job ads with salaries listed received twice as many applicants.
A recent LinkedIn poll asked, “should the salary be listed on the job posting?”
An astounding 98% of people voted yes, compared to the 2% who voted no. It’s clear that knowing salary is an important factor and something that employers can’t ignore.
Is the pay competitive compared to what’s available on the market? Does it mention how many years of experience are preferred?
If the offer is attractive, it will entice individuals to spend more time going through the job listing and applying.
Consider it a motivator for prospective employees.
2. Salary pay transparency with existing employees
Another layer of transparency and insight for potential candidates can be to disclose what others in a similar position are making.
This creates a deeper layer of trust in your organization.
And while disclosing salaries may not always be the norm, the companies that do always stand out!
Instead of sharing the exact salaries, you could even provide a salary range for the roles.
The goal is to ensure that everyone is paid fairly, and transparency will contribute to that.
This will not only stand to benefit the candidates during the recruitment process but even current employees who will better understand where they sit on the pay scale.
3. Save time and stress
Negotiating salaries can be stressful and take a lot of time.
On the other hand, if you are straightforward about the compensation package from the start, this will give candidates accurate expectations before they enter the interview process.
Imagine spending valuable resources on screening a candidate only to reach the final stage and for it all to fall apart due to ‘pay.’ This is not a scenario that you ever desire to find yourself in.
Save the time of everyone that is involved with the hiring process.
4. Create an equitable environment
Pay gaps among minorities and underrepresented groups are still a serious problem.
According to this report, some policymakers are making progress in solving this issue by introducing new pay transparency requirements for companies.
For example, Austria, Denmark, and Britain require some employers to track and report gender wage gaps.
The European Union is also mulling pay transparency legislation that would apply to every member state.
In the U.S., New York will start mandating that employers include salary ranges in job postings later this year, following the example of Colorado, where a similar mandate came into force in January 2021.
Transparency around salaries can work towards creating a more inclusive and equitable environment for everyone.
It all begins with clear communication and thus confronts any possible gaps revealed by salary exposure.
5. The controversy
The reality is that adding salary to teacher job postings can be seen as controversial for some!
Money can be understood as a ‘taboo’ topic.
There could be an underlying feeling for companies that if they disclose salaries, it will place them at a disadvantage.
As an alternative, negotiating offers once a candidate has made it to the final stages has been a tactic used by some employers.
There could even be a concern that candidates without the right amount of experience will apply simply because of the price point.
Despite all of this, there is an even bigger concern to be paying attention to, and that’s missing out on the best possible teachers because the numbers they see are not up to par.
Attracting top talent
In the end, your top priority is to attract, hire and retain a team of incredible teachers that will stick around for a long time to come.
To do so, you must highlight the appealing and unique qualities of your job posting.
Highlighting details of the compensation package is a part of this!
Keeping salaries shrouded in secrecy may only lead to disappointment and confusion for the talent you wish to hire.
And while there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to pay, your job posting compensation package is an essential component of successful hiring.
Watch the webinar: ‘Do Your Online Job Postings Attract the Best Candidates?’
Stay tuned over the upcoming months for more of our How to Attract, Recruit, and Retain Great Teachers webinar series:
- Part 1 | Do Your Online Job Postings Attract the Best Candidates?
- Part 2 | Is Your School Doing Enough to Develop and Retain Its Teachers?
Find more tips on our recruitment blog and download our International Education Recruitment Report 2022.